1. Field of the Invention
The invention relates to the field of digital image processing and in particular to characterizing video content.
2. Related Art
U.S. Pat. No. 5,179,832 teaches using some types of data in the video data stream to find scene changes. Scene changes are determined by comparison of data in consecutive frames.
The object of the invention is to create a useful characterization of video content.
This object is achieved by extracting key frames, grouping the key frames into families and creating a family representation. Preferably, the family representation is in the form of a histogram.
The family representation can be used to distinguish program boundaries, index tapes, identify program material, edit video content, or search video content for instance as part of a web search engine.